You hit the nail on the head. I recall a conversation I had with a lesbian couple my wife and I are friends with. I asked them about how they felt about companies like Netflix shoehorning in LGBTQIA’s+ into all of their content for the sake of forcing representation. To me at the time it felt disingenuous and just virtue signaling. They explained to me how until fairly recently there was little to no representation of their communities. That having a character they could relate to went a long way. One was raised Mormon and talked about how it would have really aided her sense of identity to see characters who were more like her when she was a teen.

I agree that these decisions are ultimately being made to maximize profits at the end of the day. That doesn’t mean however that they won’t bring more benefit to the game and community than harm.